Canoeing legend, Kirk Wipper was recently awarded the Order of
Ontario. His winning citation read as follows:

Internationally renowned as an environmentalist, heritage
conservationist and fitness advocate, Professor Wipper
is best known as “Canada’s Canoe King,” creator of the
Kanawa International Museum of Canoes, Kayaks and
Related Artifacts.

Over half a lifetime, Professor Wipper collected historic
watercraft in Canada, the United States and other areas
of the world, creating the world’s largest and most
significant collection of canoes and kayaks, thus
preserving an important part of Canadian heritage. The
collection is displayed at the Canadian Canoe Museum in
Peterborough.

Professor Wipper has also had a major influence in the area
of programs for youth in the province. A founding member
and executive of many national outdoor and camping
organizations, he was also a 45-year volunteer with the
Royal Life Saving Society, eventually serving as
national president. A retired professor of physical
education and health at the University of Toronto, he
has received numerous honours for his contributions to
the university and to the community at large.

Thousands of Canadian men and women in all walks of life, but
especially in camping and outdoor recreation, credit
Kirk Wipper with being their inspiration.

Well done Kirk, and the heartiest of congratulations from
Che-Mun and the Hide-Away Canoe Club.

Kirk
Wipper and his OO.

Bill Layman and Lynda Holland are off to the tundra again.
This time heading to Baker Lake following routes of the
Athapaskan Dene and the Barren Land Inuit as soon as the
ice gets out of their way.

This couple’s canoe trip will begin on approximately July 1
with them flying from La Ronge to Stony Rapids then
chartering a Beaver airplane to the south end of Selwyn
Lake. From here they will paddle the Dubawnt River to
Carey Lake - where J. B. Tyrell erected his cairn on
July 29, 1893 - and portage due east to Big Rocky Lake,
Kamilukuak Lake, and Nowleye Lake finally entering
Angikuni Lake on the Kazan River. From Angikuni they
will follow the Kazan to the community of Baker Lake
(their fourth trip to the tiny Inuit village!) arriving
in about 40 days after some 650 miles.

Interestingly, Eric and Pamela Morse did a portion of this
route in 1968 with Bill Mathers, Pat Baird, Peter
Blaikie, Ernie Howard, Tom Lawson and Angus Mackay as
recounted in Morse’s memoir FreshwaterSaga.

As he has over the last four years Bill will be sending daily
e-mails and images back to his web site at
www.out-there.com/BL.htm from the trip. Log on if
you can’t get out on the water yourself this summer!
It’s a fun read with lots of historical content.

Lynda Holland

A British Columbia man has his archeology permits and is ready
to resume his hunt for Sir John Franklin's ships in
Nunavut this spring.

David Woodman says according to Inuit, Franklin's two ships,
HMS Terror and Erebus sank south of Gjoa Haven. People
have been searching for the ships for more than 150
years.

Woodman waited more than three months to get the permits
required to do the search from the government of
Nunavut. Woodman says he and his crew have spent 12
years looking for the ships.

"Every time I come back I have lots of good memories and we
laugh a lot and I keep telling my team is that all I
promise is a camping trip from hell and a lot of good
memories that they will take away with them," he says.
"But as far as the result of actually finding it, that's
a long shot."

In May, Woodman's team will visit eight magnetic targets
south of Gjoa Haven. He says they will cut a hole in the
ice and let an unmanned vehicle explore the ocean floor
with sonar and cameras.

Woodman says they will only send divers if they find
something. He says a television crew will film the work.
However Woodman says the ships are a protected heritage
site, meaning they can't be touched or retrieved.

The rocky, wind-swept Hans Island is an interesting place for
geologists, but you probably wouldn't want to spend much
time on it.

The island has been in the news recently, with Canada and
Denmark each defending territorial claims to Hans
Island, located in the Nares Strait, between northern
Ellesmere Island and Greenland.

Three years ago, Keith Dewing and Chris Harrison, geologists
with the Geological Survey of Canada who were mapping
northern Ellesmere Island, flew by helicopter to Hans
Island.

"It's out in the middle of the ocean. It really is halfway
from Canada to Greenland. It's roughly circular,
straight-sided up from the water, sloping off to the
Greenland side. It's pretty much flat on top, and
there's some boulders scattered around," Dewing said in
an interview from Calgary. "It's been scraped pretty
much clean."

Hans
Island is interesting to geologists because it's part of
a mountain chain that starts in the Svalbard Islands off
Norway, runs through Greenland, and pokes out again in
Ellesmere Island.

Dewing says it's unlikely that the island will prove to be a
treasure trove of minerals or underwater oil reserves
for either nation. To resolve the dispute over who has
claim to the island, Dewing suggests Canada and Denmark
share Hans Island, which would then be half Nunavut,
half Greenland - and a tourist attraction in its own
right.

Spurred by the tragic boating deaths of a well-known family on
Ungava Bay last year, Nunavik's regional government has
joined forces with the Makivik Corporation to buy $3
million of search and rescue equipment.

Government officials expect 14 fully-equipped
search-and-rescue boats will wend their way to Nunavik
this year, providing each community along the Hudson Bay
and Ungava Bay with the means to retrieve victims or
survivors who get lost on the water.

The purchase marks a political coup for regional councillors
who campaigned in last year's election to pressure the
government to deliver a search boat to each community.
Politicians and residents have long complained that
Nunavik deserves its own fleet, considering the region
contains 1,500 miles of coastline. The debate was
intensified most recently last August when the Kauki
family went missing while canoeing on Ungava Bay.